A quick-hit international adventure led by a Yank full of bravado.
In this fourth installment of Yocum’s thriller series, a former CIA operative comes out of retirement to track down a missing undercover agent in Australia.
Former CIA investigator Dennis Cunningham is enjoying early retirement in Western Australia with his girlfriend, Judy White, an Australian Federal Police investigator. One night, at a supposedly social dinner, Judy’s superior offers Dennis a job: $500,000 to find David Chu, a missing Chinese agent whom Australian intelligence had been keeping tabs on. Dennis is reluctant but decides that he can’t turn down good money, and he stipulates that Judy must be his intermediary. The investigation starts off rocky when Dennis senses Australian agents aren’t telling the whole truth, and he doesn’t like being handled.The situation darkens when he receives a threatening note and is beaten by a mysterious assailant in a parking lot after meeting with an old CIA friend. As Dennis traipses across Australia and even to the States to sniff out leads, he must temper his brashness with caution, as it turns out that finding Chu may be just the tip of an iceberg of conspiracies. Yocum’s series entry, following Valley of Spies (2019), freshens the American thriller genre with an Australian tinge. For instance, Dennis’ no-holds-barred approach satisfyingly contrasts with that of his by-the-book Australian contacts. Judy is also sharply drawn as a smart, underestimated cop, and a harrowing side plot involving her son, Trevor, shows her vulnerability. Much like Dennis, Yocum’s prose is straightforward, though some of the dialogue is awkwardly expository: “Dennis, would you stop punishing yourself about the past with your daughter? Your wife died many years ago. Let’s not open that can of worms.” Dennis’ virile-hero bit also strikes a sour note sometimes, with multiple mentions of how “attractive” he finds a colleague. Still, it’s an entertaining globe-trotter of a plot, complete with stakeouts, standoffs, and acerbic banter: “No, I did not beat the shit out of you in the parking lot,” says one of Dennis’ Aussie colleagues at one point, “But I wish the hell I had.”
A quick-hit international adventure led by a Yank full of bravado.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2022
ISBN: 979-8985534528
Page Count: 410
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Sept. 15, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Soapy, suspenseful fun.
A remembered horror plunges a pregnant woman into a waking nightmare.
Tegan Werner, 23, barely recalls her one-night stand with married real estate developer Simon Lamar; she only learns Simon’s name after seeing him on the local news five months later. Simon wants nothing to do with the resulting child Tegan now carries and tells his lawyer to negotiate a nondisclosure agreement. A destitute Tegan is all too happy to trade her silence for cash—until a whiff of Simon’s cologne triggers a memory of him drugging and raping her. Distraught and eight months pregnant, Tegan flees her Lewiston, Maine, apartment and drives north in a blizzard, intending to seek comfort and counsel from her older brother, Dennis; instead, she gets lost and crashes, badly injuring her ankle. Tegan is terrified when hulking stranger Hank Thompson stops and extricates her from the wreck, and becomes even more so when he takes her to his cabin rather than the hospital, citing hazardous road conditions. Her anxiety eases somewhat upon meeting Hank’s wife, Polly—a former nurse who settles Tegan in a basement hospital room originally built for Polly’s now-deceased mother. Polly vows to call 911 as soon as the phones and power return, but when that doesn’t happen, Tegan becomes convinced that Hank is forcing Polly to hold her prisoner. Tegan doesn’t know the half of it. McFadden unspools her twisty tale via a first-person-present narration that alternates between Tegan and Polly, grounding character while elevating tension. Coincidence and frustratingly foolish assumptions fuel the plot, but readers able to suspend disbelief are in for a wild ride. A purposefully ambiguous, forward-flashing prologue hints at future homicide, establishing stakes from the jump.
Soapy, suspenseful fun.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9781464227325
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
A superior entry in the night-on-the-nightmare-ward genre.
A medical student is assigned an overnight shift to observe a Long Island hospital’s psychiatric ward and help with emergencies. You’d never guess what happens next.
Amy Brenner isn’t even interested in psychiatry, the one medical specialty she’s never considered for her own career. Nor is she interested any more in Cameron Berger, the classmate who ended their relationship so that he could spend more time studying, and she’s not pleased to learn that he’s switched his rotation with another student so he can spend some of the next 13 hours persuading Amy to rekindle their romance. Predictably, Cam will be the least of Amy’s troubles. Apart from Dr. Richard Beck and nurse Ramona Dutton, everyone else on Ward D is much more dangerous, from elderly Mary Cummings, whose knitting needles aren’t plastic but sharpened steel, to William Schoenfeld, who’s stopped taking the medications that were supposed to silence the voices telling him to kill people, to Damon Sawyer, who’s confined in Seclusion One and can’t possibly escape, unless a power outage neutralizes the locks. Most threatening of all is Jade Carpenter, whose close friendship with Amy ended eight years ago when Amy turned her in for what ended up being only one of a whole series of thrill crimes. McFadden measures out the complications, revelations, and betrayals with such an expert hand that readers anxiously trying to figure out whom Amy can trust as her goal shifts from ticking off a toilsome requirement to surviving the night may well end up wondering whom they can trust themselves. And isn’t provoking that kind of paranoia what medical thrillers are all about?
A superior entry in the night-on-the-nightmare-ward genre.Pub Date: March 4, 2025
ISBN: 9781464227271
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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